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A Florida woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison today for firing what she says was a warning shot to scare away her attacking husband. In the intensely controversial case, Marissa Alexander claims she was fleeing from her abusive husband when she fired a gun into the wall of her home. After she rejected a plea deal and was convicted of aggravated assault, the judge was required by Florida's mandatory sentencing guidelines to hand down a 20-year punishment, reports CNN.

Alexander faced the charge of aggravated assault, in part, says the prosecutor, because she shot the gun in the direction of a room where two children were standing. That prosecutor, Angela Corey, is the same one in the Trayvon Martin case. She got an earful after the sentencing from an angry Rep. Corrine Brown. "There is no justification for 20 years," Brown told her. "All the community was asking for was mercy and justice." Alexander had tried to use Florida's 'stand your ground' law in her defense, but a different judge rejected it because Alexander had returned to the home at one point during the altercation. (She forgot her car keys when trying to flee.)

Florida has got to take another look at this court case. Justice has got to be served in this case.

pepperjune

May 13, 2012 12:19 AM CDT

Left out MAJOR facts! What would be the point in misleading the readers? Alexander said her husband and her was in their bedroom when he had read cell phone text messages that she had written to her ex-husband, got angry and tried to strangle her. She ran out of the house into the garage. He did not go after her. She said she forgot her keys. She kept a gun (her own gun) in the garage (but not an extra set of keys?!) went back into the house in the kitchen . She claimed she fired the gun into the ceiling but the bullet hole was in the kitchen wall. She aimed her gun towards the living room from the kitchen. She shot through the wall into the living room. She aimed it low enough that it easily could had killed any three of them, her husband and 2 kids, in the livingroom when the bullet went through the wall . Again, Low enough to have accidently hit one of the 2 boys that were next to their father. She went back into the home with a loaded gun and aimed it in her husbands direction whom was next to his 2 children and fired it knowing there was a chance of hitting 1 of the kids.! Alexander was acting out of anger, not fear. What would everyone be saying about Alexander if one of the children had gotten hit or even worse, died? Who is looking out for those 2 children? Do those children not deserve justice? It's not about her firing her gun at her husband but firing at him when he had 2 kids next of him. She was offered 3 yrs but turned it down. Taken from innerstandingisness.wordpress.com About four months after Alexander was released on bail, on orders to have no contact with Gray, she got into an altercation with him at his home that gave him a black eye, Corey said. Alexander was arrested and charged with battery, to which she pleaded no contest. Alexander’s actions — engaging with a man of whom she claimed to be deathly afraid, and assaulting him — “didn’t show much of her being remorseful” or “being a peaceful person.”Everybody is still ignoring that she got out on bond and chose to go back over there and hit him a second time,” Corey said. “That was kind of an indication of where putting her on probation, where you might have been able to do that before, was off the table since she disregarded a judges order.” In the police report, Gray claimed that Alexander came over to drop off their daughter, and that when he rebuffed Alexander’s request to spend the night, she “became enraged and began striking him on the face.” Gray said he raised his hands, the report continues, and he yelled out to his sons to call the police. The responding officer wrote that Gray’s children corroborated that account. When the police contacted her an hour or so later, according to the report, she said she didn’t understand why they were contacting her and that she had an “alibi.” The police noted swelling and a cut under Gray’s left eye and no visible injuries on Alexander. But on the way to the jail, Alexander said she felt light-headed and became unresponsive. An officer then “observed that there was a small cut under the suspect’s eye that was not there prior to her being placed in my back seat.” Stand your ground law was made to help abused women. I am not claiming there was no abuse because obviously there was but it looks to be an issue on both sides. Abuse is wrong. Doesn't make it ok depending on who the abuser is. Stalin was only 5'4, did not make him less dangerous. Point is we need to step back, not allow others form our opinions for us by misleading by leaving out facts. People that do that do not care about justice but have their own agendas or they would state facts, all of them. Being a mother of 4 and having to run away with my kids and hide to get away from an abusive husband, I want justice but when you allow revenge and hate blind you from the facts and allow your own pain take over than you become what you hate and what has hurt you. I cannot condon her actions that night based on the nightmare of abuse I went through. Abuse has claimed too many lives already. Cannot abuse the laws to the point that there is no justice for any victims. There were victims that night and as far as I am concerned it was not her or her husband but the children.